The Five Deaths
by Supaslim
Summary: INGEN secretly owns all of the Five Deaths an island chain including Isla Sorna. When some islands are abandoned, the wildlife, particularly a young raptor named Cleric, flourish and start island hopping.
1. Chapter 1

All was silent on the abandoned Isla Tocano as a Cessna soared overhead. It wasn't landing; just passing through. No human had set foot on the island for months, and the superstitions about the small island kept most potential explorers and thrill-seekers away. Those brave enough to land anyway- they lost contact with all humanity sooner or later, and were never heard from again.

As the plane hummed away into the distance, the life under the tropical canopies of the island sprang into action again. Birds called, and were responded to by other, more primitive, screaming voices. Wings pounded in the trees, sending showers of rainwater to the sediment covered forest floor, shaken from the cuplike leaves above. The droplets pattered against the stone below- a strange phenomena, the trees and other plants sprouted from cracks in the volcanic stone, and sediment deposits from ash polluted rainfall formed small stalagmites among the trunks and fronds.

An enormous dragonfly fluttered through the abundant plant life, its foot long wings glistening green and blue in the humid air. It perched precariously on a fern frond, making it bow slightly under the surprising weight. Suddenly, a pair of jaws snapped out from the grassy tufts below, snapping shut on the dragonfly's body. The creature emerged, pulling the struggling insect with it into the open. The green and brown camouflaged bird-like creature used its smooth and scaly forelegs to rip the enormous wings off its quarry before tearing at the fleshy body of the bug with tiny needle teeth.

There was a rumbling growl from the distance, and the compsognathus abandoned its kill with a shrill squeal, running away from the noise. Several more of its kind leapt from the brush to join it, and they were gone. A pair of microraptors glided in the branches above, leaping and soaring from branch to branch, squawking and squabbling with each other, using their peculiar leg wings to speed up their short flights. When they arrived at an old abandoned building and ran out of trees, they swooped to the ground, and bunching their hind leg feathers up against their shins, they trotted into the weathered building, still twittering back and forth.

Nobody could deny, the forest had reclaimed the land. Vines and ferns had broken through every crevice of the building and grown as large as they could. Bits of the metal roof material had rusted through, and beams of misty sunlight pierced through in patches, illuminating the large, single room.

A dozen outdated computers sat on metal and plastic desks. There were chairs at some of the desks, but at others, it seemed a curious creature had knocked them across the room, where they sat rotting in the sunlight.

The desks themselves were a mess. Moss and vines had conquered them, and the CD cases and papers were tossed about everywhere. The computers themselves were old and boxy, with cracked dingy white plastic shells and enormous towers with cables leading to a side wall, where a slightly faded marking on the floor and wall suggested that a supercomputer once sat there. A few of the cracked and dusty screens miraculously still glowed.

In the back of the building sat a row of damaged incubators. Their glass roofs were smashed in and shattered. Half of their contents, countless gray and black mottled eggs with teal speckled, were cracked open and had long since decomposed. The others had frozen to sterility in the chilly nights.

A single egg stirred in the dim light, wobbling where it sat upright on its skinny end in its egg shaped depression. It was sheltered and protected from scavengers and the cold by dozens of papers bearing its DNA sequence that had blown in the breeze from one of the desks and into its incubator. The egg wobbled again, shifting the yellowed papers. Muffled chirps pervaded the incubator, but there was no mother to help this egg hatch.

Finally, after countless minutes, a dark snout punched a triangular hole in the shell of the egg. Shoving fractured shell bits out one by one, a young velociraptor struggled his way into the world. Distorted green striped covered his near black body, terminating by the time they reached his pale gray belly. He fell onto the metal floor of the incubator a few inches below, and the rest of the egg fell apart. He struggled to his feet, blinking his large green eyes curiously. He took in his new world with only mild interest- he was hungry. He licked the remaining egg white off his forelimbs first, before turned his gaze onto the first thing in sight: a sterile, and no doubt spoiled, egg, sitting intact beside him. He clumsily leapt at it, until he knocked it sideways and it cracked open, spilling its foul smelling contents onto the incubator. He gave a squeak of delight before eagerly devouring the mess, not thinking twice about its foul taste and stench.

When his small stomach was full, the raptor crept to the edge of the incubator and peered down the three foot drop with a cocked head. He blinked once, twice, then made a flying leap off the edge, landing splay legged on the racked and mossy linoleum tile below. His tiny claws skittered and clicked as he struggled back to his feet. Carelessly whooping and chattering to himself, he bounced to where the door once was (it had been torn from the hinges and tossed into the forest long ago), looking out into the bright green landscape. He squealed in delight. His home!


	2. Chapter 2

Deep in Isla Tocano's rainforest, a stale gust of wind toppled an empty CD case off the plastic shell of a monitor

Deep in Isla Tocano's rainforest, a stale gust of wind toppled an empty CD case off the plastic shell of a monitor. It clattered onto the keyboard, mashing keys, and then bounced onto the floor, where the cover cracked into a few pieces. The screen twanged resistantly on the moldy desk before coming back to life. A few flecks of some rusty reddish-brown liquid were dried on the glass. Two programs were open. One was a DNA processor, filled with millions of pages of genetic coding, now unavailable because of the absence of the supercomputer. A pop up window partially obscured the window.

"InGen DNA Synth has confirmed a positive match for species 'Velociraptor mongoliensis' with additional unidentified genetic material. Possible contamination sources include: Opisthocomus hoazin, Carnotaurus sastrei, Cryptobranchu-"

Everything else in the window was covered by the second program- Notepad. On it were written a few paragraphs by an unknown scientist.

"-They have us surrounded in here- we can't see them, but they keep calling out to each other. We think they are the results of the second brood we ever made on this island; they are definitely not raptors, the voices are wrong. They are deeper, bigger... I can only hope that this new brood can survive longer than we can...

"-We havent left the incubation warehouse for two days they killed Keel. He just stepped outside last night and was grabbed in the dark. His flashlight is still out there. It is shining into this building. We can use the light. We need the light. They dont like it.

"-i was right they are from the second brood and we need to get out of here. we have eaten the last of the food and we need to get to the ocean. they are waiting for us and they will leave if we dont get there before dawn our radio is gone so is keels light it is dark. i can hear something moving by the door i can only hope it is greg and not the brood. greg just told me to check if they are waiting for us we are ready to leave. i am going to check if the coast is clear and no carnottttttttttttfffffffccc-"

The message trailed off as if something had fallen on the keyboard and was dragged off. In the distant jungle, a barking roar could be faintly heard.

--

Two adult raptors leapt out of a tree from several feet above the ground, landing with a squelch on the marshy ground outside the incubation shed. Their green and brown striped bodies flickered as they passed tree trunks and ferns; they were from one of the earliest man made broods on the island, and also had carnotaurus contaminated DNA, so they could change their body's colors and shades, within reason.

The pair had found several meals here; eggs of various sizes appeared every once in a while inside circular glass and metal troughs of incubators for them overnight. There had been one last egg in the building, but for weeks, the larger, dumber carnotaurs had kept them away. They probably thought there were still humans inside.

The raptors trotted through the door frame in single file, ending up side by side as they passed between computers. They skirted cautiously around the computers that glowed blue or white at them. Their claws ticked on the linoleum floor as they trotted. They reached the incubator only to find the egg was empty, the shells strewn ont he floor.

_Did it hatch? Or was it eaten?_ pondered the first raptor, in its own hissing, chirping language.

_If it was eaten, it means out territory has been trespassed upon..._ pointed out the second, _Which gives us a reason to kill the invader... Which means out quarry is now bigger than expected._ And more dangerous, he thought to himself, but he didn't share that with his partner.

_Or,_ the first continued, _a hatchling created by those human creatures is now wandering our territory, and we don't even know what it is!_

_So let's kill it while it is small and young!_ shrieked the second loudly, and wheeled around towards the door, followed eagerly by the first. They paused at the door when they found tiny footprints in the mud: two toes down, and one held up off the ground. Another raptor. _Or perhaps, we can persuade this hatchling to join us, and strengthen our territory, until we can muster a larger pack... _He snuffed experimentaly at the tracks before pulling his head away, adding _It smells funny..._

--

Cleric bounced gaily through the trees, ignoring all other creatures. He didn't know how much danger he was putting himself into by simply dashing around in plain view, tipping liters of rain water out of enormous leaves with every step. A microraptor and a few tropical birds scattered as he approached.

He suddenly heard deep chuffing noises in front of him, and to his left. They were very loud, and he whined slightly, scrabbling his narrow head and face with his forelimbs. Curious of this new noise, however, he advanced cautiously, unknowingly shifting his colors to blend with the forest behind him and to his sides. He edged through the branches, and found himself on the outside fringe of the forest. So his birth place, like he had originally imagined, was not in a never ending expanse of trees? Beyond the sudden tree line was an enormous trampled strip of cracked earth, hardened from years of drought long ago and high animal traffic. And beyond that was a sandy white beach, and then an endless expanse of iron gray water. But between the sand and the trees were two giants.

Cleric frantically tried to match them with everything he knew- which wasn't much- and ended up comparing them to himself. They were far bigger, hundreds of times over. They had taller, wider heads with a prominent horn above each eye, and fatter bodies. Their forelegs were short and skinny, but their long hind legs were meaty and muscular. Cleric noticed he had the same skin as them- they shifted their colors, too. Their skin couldn't manage the deep blue behind them, though, and settled for an off teal green. Would he get that big, he wondered? Excitedly, he squaled and whooped at them from his perch.

_Oh! Oooh! Hello! Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I came from a round thing in a bigger thing with no sky! I-_ He twittered excitedly at them. The two strange horn-eyed dinosaurs turned their heads sideways to look at him from one eye, then another, like a bird. Then they began trotting towards him, mouths slightly agape, wheezing and chuffing as they moved their considerable bulks. _Hello...?_ Cleric called out again. One horn-eyed monster roared at him, a deep, vibrating rumble, and broke into a run, straight towards him. Cleric squealed in terror, and turned tail, running with all the speed he could manage, back into the forest.

The raptor hatchling dashed across the branches of the trees, in a fit of instinct. He ducked through a thick knot of tangled vines, dissuading a chase. However, the horn-eyes kept close behind, only stopping to duck thick branches. He could hear the smaller stalagmites cracking and snapping as the large dinosaurs trampled them.

An adult raptor burst from a thicket of vines to Cleric's left, startling him. The approach was silent, and not a lead stirred under its feet. It snapped up Cleric in its jaws, and began climbing and clawing up and away from the giants. He fully expected it to snap his spine there and then. Defiant, and still acting on impulse, he snarled, and clawed the soft spot on the bottom of its jaw with his right hind leg. He felt warm blood spurt from a small cut he inflicted, and the adult snorted in surprise and slight alarm. It transferred him nimbly to its long fingered hand, careful not to poke him with its long tree climbing claws.

_Relax!_ It commanded him when he kept squirming and kicking. _I just saved your life from those carnotaurs, you fool! _Cleric stopped struggling and looked properly at the raptor. It was male, like a bigger version of him: black with mottled green stripes. However, this raptor also had a brown crest on its head and brown spikes on his dark green tail tip, shaped like fern fronds. Another raptor appeared from above. It waited for the male to reach its level, and trotted with him across the trees to a pair of huge nests in the branches, comprised of leaves, twigs, and mud, like a bird's. These, however, seemed more suited for roosting than egg rearing. The male dropped Cleric into one of the nests, and climbed in himself. The other stood outside the nest. Cleric looked at both. The second raptor was female, but looked identical to the male.

_Are you my parents?_ the young raptor asked, slightly confused by his instincts versus his experiences. The two raptors glanced at each other, exchanging equally confused glances. They had never dealt with hatchlings before. They had hardly ever even seen a juvenile.

_No, we definitely are NOT,_ stated the female dryly. The male pushed Cleric over, pinning him down with his right foot. He lowered his big clawd toe down, resting it across Cleric's fragile body.

_Tell me, little leaf hopper, where are you from? Which pack? _he asked coldly.

_What do you mean, 'pack?' Is that what I came from? The big square thing with straight sides?_ He spoke of the incubation shed. The raptors glanced at each other again.

_So the humans made you too. We are of the third nest. You are of the last. Tell me, leaf hopper, what is your name? You have a name?_ Cleric thought back. He knew his name was Cleric, but how? He vaguely remembered rumbling human voices above him when he started listening to the outside world, and the word "Cleric" came up often. There was one hysteric voice that repeated over and over: they would have to be holy messengers to survive the carnos. Ha! Holy dinosaurs, the priests of beasts. Right! If I live to see these eggs hatch, I will kneel before them and call them Cleric!

Cleric did not understand their grumbling speech, but if they said "Cleric" so often near him, they could only be talking about him, right?

_My name is Cleric. The human creatures called me Cleric!_

_Oh really. And how do you know this? The humans were killed long before you hatched._

_Well, they said 'Cleric' around me a lot... _The male and female looked at the young raptor thoughtfully.

_Welcome to the pack of the parentless, little Cleric leaf hopper._


	3. Chapter 3

What are your names

_What are your names?_ Cleric asked after the male raptor unpinned him. The two adults exchanged glances yet again.

_We have no names. We've never needed them,_ the female stated simply, and the male bobbed his head in response.

_It's only ever been the two of us; no need for names in a pack of two._ Cleric craned his head to peer at them.

_But what will I call you?_

_That's a silly question, leaf hopper, _the female growled, and lowered her head to Cleric's level. _You'll call us Alpha._

Cleric stepped back from the female's head, arching his neck. She was at a convenient biting distance, and he didn't like it. The male looked pleased with the female's response. The female glared at Cleric a moment longer as if challenging the tiny raptor to argue, then resumed normal posture, perching almost precariously on a sturdy branch.

_Well, as fascinating as this is, I'm hungry,_ said the female, as if the male had been presenting her with boring conversation._ I think I'll go bring in a few compys._

_Save me one?_ the male asked hopefully, cocking its head and leaning forward on its thick toes. The female snorted at him.

_As if. I'm not about to carry food back here for you so you can sleep._ Her chest rumbled lightly beneath her cold, warbling speech. The male looked downcast for a moment, but then its gaze snapped to Cleric.

_Take the hatchling with you. He's just big enough to carry a compy._ The male's eyes grinned, and the female gave in.

_Fine. Leaf hopper needs to learn how to hunt anyhow._

The female raptor- Femrap, as Cleric referred to her later- jabbed the youngster roughly in the flank with an only slightly blunted claw as if to tell him to follow, making him wince, but not cry out. He followed her as she bounced lightly down through the foliage, barely making a noise. Cleric had a harder time. The branches Femrap used were too widely spaced for him to traverse without leaping as hard as he could. He was constantly struggling to find alternate routes that kept the quick moving Femrap in sight, but were comfortable for him to dash along. Femrap made no sign of slowing down, either, so by the time they reached the mineral coated floor of the forest, he was panting for breath, while she was still breathing lightly.

Femrap raised her snout, taking a deep echoing whiff of the air. Then, she froze, jaws working slightly. Cleric, curious as to what she smelled, took a deep breath himself. He thought he knew what she was so interested in- a pungent, sour odor that he didn't recognize masked the more tolerable scent of ocean salt. With it came the iron reek of blood, though he didn't recognize that scent at the time either.

_Do you smell it too, leaf hopper Cleric? That is the smell of a human. It's probably injured._ Femrap glanced down at Cleric, who was memorizing the smell and pinning the name to it._ I thought the Carnotaurs had finished the last of them off… _she added, almost to herself. She took another lungful of the air, and bobbed her head this way and that, following the scent. Cleric watched confused for a moment. Couldn't she tell that the human was off past that cycad somewhere? Maybe she couldn't. Perhaps her senses had dulled with age.

Cleric chirped up at her, gaining her momentary attention, then darted forward like only a small animal could through the ferns and trees. After only a moment, though, he found himself dangling in Femrap's jaws. She transferred him roughly to her forelegs.

_You click your claws like a rat when you walk!_ She elevated her toe claws just enough that they didn't clack on the stone floor of the forest, illustrating her point. Cleric squirmed in her grasp, and wriggled free, falling to the ground. He landed easily in a slight crouch on his hind legs, then bounced up to his normal posture. Shooting an uncertain glance up at Femrap, he raised his own claws and took a few steps forward. Apparently Femrap was pleased with the improvement, because she didn't stop him when he continued tracking the scent.

Prowling among the trees, Cleric led his elder forward, pausing when the birds went silent or insects rapidly abandoned their bushes. The young raptor snorted lightly, letting his nose lead him… right into a tree. He stopped right in from of a thick tree, which had parasitic ivy climbing up the bark. Light filtered through the canopy more easily here, as the tree was dying from its poison of vines and didn't sprout many leaves.

Femrap peered up into the tree, astounded that any human would think they were safe up there. Surely they realized that the trees were raptor territory… Cleric leaned forward, snout only an inch from the tree, and took a huge breath that rattled lightly in his throat.

_The trail goes on up the tree, _he chirped, and leapt clumsily at the vines and ivy a couple feet off the ground. His hind claws snagged easily, but his forearms didn't even reach the bark. He fell back onto his back with a squeak of surprise, and tried again. This time, his forelegs (which were longer and more heavily muscled than those of his purely terrestrial raptor cousins) connected with the vines as well as his hind legs, and he began to scamper up the tree, tail swaying behind him. Femrap, as if to show off, crouched back on her powerful haunches, and rocketed up above Cleric by feet, landing an easy ten feet up the tree and skidding down six inches before her claws held. Her dense claws left gouge marks in the relatively soft mineral bed that coated the ground. Cleric squealed in alarm as she slid down towards him, and almost fell off the tree again. She glanced at him over her dark shoulder, silently warning him to stay quiet. He snapped his mouth shut with the hollow thump of air and teeth getting sealed behind leathery skin.

Together they scaled the tree, stopping at the first limb large enough to support their combined weight. Glancing around, Femrap spotted a larger branch of the same tree nearby. Seizing Cleric in her mouth, she squatted, shuffling her feet until they were sufficiently braced and a good distance apart, and then made another astounding leap. She smacked against the limb with a thud, and clambered with all four limbs to get up on top. She used her extra large claws in addition to her sickle claws to grasp the tree, then swung up onto it and released her ward. There was a scurry of motion and a grunting whimper from the base of the limb, and both raptors swung their heads around to look. A strange white creature had pulled a sheet of ivy from the tree and had wrapped itself in it, as if the green leaves would hide it from Cleric's nose.

Cleric trotted forward on the limb towards the creature, ignoring Femrap's warning- _Humans are dangerous, you imbecile! It will kill you!_ Cleric doubted that this human was dangerous. It looked afraid, not aggressive. The young raptor eased closer. It smelled male, and had sparse black fur sprouting from its head and face. He wore a white lab coat, although Cleric didn't know what it was, except that it was covered in dried and flaking blood.

_Is it hurt?_ Cleric twittered, and Femrap snorted uneasily from where she perched.

_I don't think it is. The blood isn't fresh. But it hasn't attacked, so we can't be sure. Maybe it can't move. You have to be careful with humans, leaf hopper- they're very aggressive and dangerous. Truly insane beasts._

Something glinted gold on the man's chest beneath the leaves. Cleric, attracted by the glimmer, cocked his head. It was a brass name tag, engraved with the words "Greg McDonowa" and in subscript below it, "Hatching Supervisor."

The man suddenly shifted, and grunted at Cleric incomprehensively. Its vocal range was far lower than Cleric's, much closer to that of a Carnotaur than a raptor.

"Stay away! Get away from me!"

Femrap lunged at the sudden ruckus, stepping completely over Cleric, who had frozen on the branch and arched his neck in an "S" shape.

_Die, human scum!_ The man fumbled with something under the vines that Cleric hadn't noticed before- a metal box with rocker switched and dials on it. He punched a red switch with his thumb, and a horrible supersonic siren filled the air. Femrap shrieked in pain, and leapt farther up the tree to escape the noise. Cleric clutched at his head with his thin arms, and screamed with the sound that echoed and shook in his hollow bones. The man scooted forward, eyes glinting in terror behind the scratched and dirty lenses of his glasses. A brown booted foot connected solidly with Cleric then, and he was aware of falling through empty air. Was this what the microraptors felt like when they swooped from tree to tree? He collided with a thin, whippy branch which both slightly slowed his fall and left an angry bruise across his back. Before he hit the ground, Cleric experienced several similar collisions with branches of various sizes. Nearby, the angry roars of Carnotaurs filled the air, and Cleric smacked into the ground. The man, startled by the close proximity of the Carnotaur bellows, dropped the noise machine. It tumbled down as if in slow motion, bouncing once from the tree trunk, then crashed into the ground next to Cleric. As the noise faded, so did Cleric's vision, and all was quiet.


End file.
